Public Affairs

Reporting 1916

At the turn of the twentieth century, increased literacy and widespread distribution enabled newspapers to exert significant influence. Ciarán Galway looks at how events would conspire to drive a wedge between the prevailing philosophies of the press and the Irish people.

What some regard as the most seminal moment in modern Irish history, the armed rebellion of Easter week 1916, sparked a revolutionary revival within Irish nationalism. However, when considering events through the kaleidoscope of history, it is easy to overlook certain inalienable truths. The Rising was a violent attempt by a minority within a minority to wrest power from Britain in the absence of a democratic mandate. It is possible to gain some appreciation of this reality by exploring contemporary media reports, analysis and editorials, most notably contained within the Dublin-based broadsheets.

The Irish media of the day was dominated by an élite cohort of unionist and Redmondite newspaper owners, editors and journalists. As such, while public sympathy for the rebels was still scarce in the immediate aftermath of the Rising, the tone of newspaper interpretation was particularly vitriolic. While contemporary newspaper accounts depicted the Rising in an exceptionally negative light, the pervading attitudes of the nationalist population were, in reality, much more changeable and complex. 

Founded in 1859 as “the voice of southern unionism”, the Irish Times was largely read by the Anglo-Irish establishment as well as the Protestant commercial and professional classes. Its editor for 27 years, John Healy, went on to back the pro-Treaty Cumann na nGaedheal government as the lesser of two evils. His successor, Robert Smyllie later described the paper as having been “the organ of the British Government”. 

In 1916, Dublin’s Abbey Street was the home of the mainstream press in Ireland. The then reserve printing offices of the Irish Times were based on Abbey Street Lower, placing the newspaper in the very midst of the Rising’s epicentre on Sackville Street. Indeed at the outbreak of the insurrection on 24 April, the rebels removed newspaper print rolls from the office for use in makeshift barricades. The following day it was reported: “This newspaper has never been published in stranger circumstances than those that obtain today, an attempt to overthrow the Government of Ireland.”

Also prominent after its rebranding in 1905, the Irish Independent had come to replace the Freeman’s Journal as a mouthpiece for the growing Catholic and vaguely nationalist middle class. Under the ownership of William Martin Murphy, the newspaper had attempted to break the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union strike in 1913. Later, during the Free State era, the Irish Independent came to be defined by its pious Catholicism, anti-communism and, similar to the Irish Times, support for the pro-Treaty government.

Following the Rising, the Irish Catholic, also owned by William Martin Murphy, declared Pádraig Pearse to be: “A man of ill-balanced mind, if not actually insane, and the idea of selecting him as chief magistrate of the Irish Republic is quite enough to create serious doubts as to the sanity of those who approved it … Only the other day when the so-called Republic of Ireland was proclaimed … no better president could be proposed … than a crazy and insolent schoolmaster.”

In days which followed the quelling of the rebellion in city and in the provinces, the Dublin media clamoured to denounce the Rising and its leadership. The rebels were portrayed as murderers, fools, criminal, insane, ruthless, callous, traitors and utterly deluded, “without a shred of public sympathy”.

On 2 May 1916, The Irish Times carried British General John Maxwell’s ‘tribute to the troops’ and within its editorial stated: “We print with much pleasure, and the Irish public will endorse heartily, General Sir John Maxwell’s tribute to the conduct of our troops in the Dublin insurrection.” The editorial added: “Irish treachery has won its due reward of shame and ingratitude … Nothing remains of this act of criminal lunacy except its track of sorrow, misery and destruction.”

Likewise, on 4 May, the editorial of the Irish Independent declared: “No terms of denunciation that pen could indict would be too strong to apply to those responsible for the insane and criminal rising of last week.” It continued, extolling the virtues of blood sacrifice on the battlefields of France and Turkey, describing this sacrifice as “expiation for the acts of unfilial ingrates who have besmirched the honour of their native land.” 

During the ensuing weeks, within commentary of both the Irish Times and the Irish Independent disdain grew for the rebel leaders, 15 of whom faced British firing squads between 3 and 12 May. Despite being the most popular newspaper in nationalist Ireland and even after 12 executions, on 10 May the Irish Independent pressed for General Maxwell to continue: “Let the worst of the ringleaders be singled out and dealt with as they deserve.” 

Likewise, the Irish Times remarked: “The State has struck, but its work is not yet finished. The surgeon’s knife has been put to the corruption in the body of Ireland and its course must not be stayed until the whole malignant growth has been removed. Sedition must be rooted out of Ireland once and for all.” It later added: “It is now suggested that the sterner punishment has become indefensible, not because it may not be deserved, but because an unhappily large number of persons has deserved it. There is neither logic nor common sense in this complaint.” The newspaper denounced the Irish Parliamentary Party’s calls for a cessation of executions as preposterous and “an invitation to anarchy.”

In the end, 14 of the 90 rebels sentenced to death after courts martial, were executed in Kilmainham Gaol, while Thomas Kent was shot in Cork Prison and Roger Casement was hanged in London’s Pentonville Prison. Throughout the process and in the aftermath, the Irish Times remained absolute in its support of the military governance and articulated: “We hope that martial law will be maintained in Ireland for many months.”

Meanwhile, outside of the media bubble, sympathy for the rebels grew. British-led executions, deportations, general repression and rumours of atrocity heralded a turn in the tide of public opinion and that of the Catholic Church hierarchy. An assumption that violence was futile or even counterproductive to the nationalist cause had been cast aside. These and many other factors combined to erode support for Redmond and constitutional nationalism. Soon a war would emerge, with objectives completely at odds with the dominant doctrines of Ireland’s mainstream news sources.

The Irish Times

“Everybody in Ireland who is not blinded by timidity or political prejudice knows perfectly well that Sir John Maxwell’s work in Ireland is only half done … Ireland needs a thorough clearance of all her elements of disaffection.”

 

Irish Independent

“No terms of denunciation that pen could indict would be too strong to apply to those responsible for the insane and criminal rising of last week … it is too true that the ruin around us is the work of the common enemy.”

 

Freeman’s Journal

“[The Rising] was brought about by men without authority, representative character, or practical sanity. Hundreds of lives have been sacrificed, many of them the lives of youths of high principle … guiled and bewitched by the vain promises and delusive lies of those who led them to destruction.”

 

The Irish News

“There was not a ‘national uprising’ in Dublin. It was not even a sectional ‘uprising’. The whole sad business was conceived and planned, and carried into fatal effect without the knowledge or the sanction of the Irish Nation.”

 

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